The Middle East Issues Committee at the Presbyterian Church’s general assembly in Detroit voted 45-20 today to recommend divesting from three companies that do business with the Israeli military. While the resolution still has to go to the general plenary for it to be adopted, Palestinian rights advocates celebrated the move as a first step towards divestment.

Nearly 30 years after it divested from corporations complicit in South African apartheid, the Presbyterian Church voted 310-303 to divest from three corporations involved with the Israeli military and its occupation. The vote means that $21 million of Presbyterian stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett Packard and Motorola Solutions will be divested.

The extraordinarily close vote (51% to 49% of delegates) came after an intense hours-long debate that featured emotional pleas on all sides.

“It hurts me to know that we invest in the tearing apart of Palestinian lives,” said Emma Warman, a youth delegate, before the vote took place. The advisory voters, including the youth delegates, overwhelmingly recommended a positive vote for divestment.

This close vote came two years after another close vote that went in the opposite direction. In 2012, the Presbyterian Church rejected divestment by just two votes.

The Methodists have also begun to divest. This actually happened before the Presbyterian vote.

Let's hope/pray we've reached a historic turning point. MHG

United Methodist Church's pension board divests from Israel-linked company

By JTA | Jun. 14, 2014

The United Methodist Church’s pension board is selling its shares in a British company that supplies security equipment to Israel for use in prisons and in the West Bank.

Though a pro-Palestinian movement inside the Church claimed the divestment is due to human rights violations by Israel, the UMC's pension board said the move was actually about the targeted company’s work with prisons in general.

A press release issued by United Methodist Kairos Response, a movement within the church that advocates on behalf of Palestinian Christians, said the decision to divest from G4S was “due in part to concerns about the company’s involvement in human rights violations in the Israeli prison system and the military occupation of Palestinian territories.”